The U.S. Air Force’s decision not to fund the Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite program that would have upgraded 300 U.S. F-16 fighter jets and 146 Taiwan F-16s comes as a blow to Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

Defense:

Air Force leadership spent months telling anyone who would listen that their budget would result in a smaller service today in order to afford modernization for tomorrow, and its budget delivered on that promise. But in an attempt to cut as deeply as possible to fund key priorities, the service has left itself in a precarious position as it heads into Congress to defend its decisions.

Almost a year of complex coordination came down to a frenetic final month at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, where hundreds of soldiers and airmen worked to complete a transit hub by Feb. 1 to carry the U.S. through the waning days of the Afghan war.

When the Defense Department last month announced plans to retire the Beale-based fleet of U-2 spy planes starting in 2016 in favor of drones to save money, people began to worry. As many as 1,070 people attached to the Marysville-area base and its U-2 mission – maintainers, pilots, contractors and medical personnel – could be affected if the spy plane is mothballed, according to federal and state officials.

Thomas Corbett may never know what – if anything – from his five years as a heavy-equipment mechanic in the Marine Corps brought on the disease that likely will steal from him the use of nearly every one of his muscles and, sometime in the next several years, his very breath.

Researchers at Stony Brook University in New York have coined the term “Iraq-Afghanistan war lung injury” to describe respiratory symptoms developed by some veterans — and they have duplicated the problem in mice, using dust from Camp Victory in Baghdad.

International:

The German Army has received the last of 12 Airbus Tiger attack helicopters that have been upgraded to Afghanistan Stabilization German Army Rapid Deployment (ASGARD) standard, Airbus Group announced March 6.

Viewpoint:

If, as the Obama administration is convinced, the United States will no longer conduct “long and large stability operations” in foreign countries, then the defense budget it has proposed for next year makes some logical choices. Troop strength, particularly in the Army, is being cut — to the lowest level since before World War II — so that money can be spent on new technology, cyber operations and special operations forces, which will be expanded.

Local military discounts

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